tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-281768892024-03-23T10:55:20.265-07:00the same riverzhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-18919863733915235012014-03-31T10:25:00.003-07:002014-04-15T10:05:50.963-07:00WAYS OF LIFE // Part 1: Original Affluence <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">NO MORE THAN WE NEED</span></b></div>
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On several occasions over the years i have encountered versions of this ancient African parable: </div>
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A band of nomads encounter a tree full of ripe fruits, and proceed to have a feast. In the morning, as they are about to set off, a young man has bundled up a package of the fruits to take on their journey, so they can have food for another day. An elder of the group stops him: "We don't have many rules, but the most important one is: we give thanks, we enjoy, but we do not take with." The young one asks: "but why not?" The elder answers: "Because the world is plentiful, and will provide for us. But if we take more than we need, it will be the beginning of the end of our care free lives, and lead the entire world to catastrophe." </div>
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The story always ends there, with no explanation; and i used to dismiss it as some kind of superstitious nonsense. It was not until recently when i gained a little bit more understanding of the basic tenants of Marxism that i began to get a sense of the deep significance of this story, which contains perhaps the most crucial lesson for humanity. This tale has everything to do with the global crisis on multiple fronts we are experiencing in the 21st century, as well as with the future of humanity from this point on, if there is to be any. (if you can cite specific versions or know more about this, please leave a comment)</div>
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One of the central and most important tenants of Marxist analysis of economics is the concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value" target="_blank">surplus value</a>, or the material resources which are left over after all the needs of members of a society are met. According to Karl Marx, the evil of capitalism is not the competition it allegedly fosters or its supposed lack of concern for the poor. Rather, it is the inevitable problem of surplus value and surplus labor, which is stolen from the workers who produced it, by the capitalists who control means of production. To simplify complex theories and make a long story short, Marx expressed roughly the same idea as the African fable: that surplus is basically the original source of inequality, hierarchy, inequality, injustice, slavery, and war. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK1l8wQPSyiPbObWJyxbKivsimQqNpZXJgl8Zjd0ZFddhHYLCnYn9H0pUK7WD13_XGznDPDLCAaGSF3evOoXZG-MIJjswhZV9wqcFSv-8R_ZGK6gJovaxyx0BaSc5wa7algSeK9g/s1600/_Family.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK1l8wQPSyiPbObWJyxbKivsimQqNpZXJgl8Zjd0ZFddhHYLCnYn9H0pUK7WD13_XGznDPDLCAaGSF3evOoXZG-MIJjswhZV9wqcFSv-8R_ZGK6gJovaxyx0BaSc5wa7algSeK9g/s1600/_Family.jpg" height="215" width="320" /></a>It is no coincidence that pre"civilized" peoples in Africa understood economics, society, the exact nature of their precarious relationship, and how it impacts individual quality of life as well as our collective fate, in such precise and profound ways, as did similar <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomadic" target="_blank">nomadic</a> societies spread all over the world. These are groups who figured out a way to live peaceful, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarian" target="_blank">egalitarian</a> lives for at least many hundreds of thousands of years prior to the onset of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedentism" target="_blank">sedentism</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastoralism" target="_blank">pastoralism</a>, division of labor, class stratification, centralized power, subjugation, exploitation, and other aspects of so called "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization" target="_blank">civilization</a>". This is the consensus within the field of anthropology since at least the 1960s, with the remaining dispute being similar in nature to the controversy around Climate Change. A simple google search on the subject will reveal source and further reading materials to back up these claims, such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> on gatherer-hunters, or this piece from <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201105/how-hunter-gatherers-maintained-their-egalitarian-ways" target="_blank">Psychology Today</a>, which makes it very clear: </div>
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Is it true that hunter-gatherers were peaceful egalitarians? The answer is yes. ... If just one anthropologist had reported all this, we might assume that he or she was a starry-eyed romantic who was seeing things that weren't really there, or was a liar. But many anthropologists, of all political stripes, regarding many different hunter-gatherer cultures, have told the same general story.</blockquote>
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The rise of Homo Sapien Sapiens as the dominant and only surviving species of advanced <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominids" target="_blank">hominids</a> in the entire Homo genus may have involved inter-species competition and violence, as our distant ancestors faired better in the survival game than others such as Australopithecus, Homo Neanderthalensis, Homo Habilis, etc., that once all cohabited this planet. But after this, evolutionary biologists agree that our species has spent more than 90% of our time on earth in highly egalitarian, <a href="http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/courses/239/band.html" target="_blank">band-level</a> Gatherer-Hunter societies which enjoyed peace and equality: our ancestors figured out a way to live sustainably for at least 200,000 to 500,000 years, but more probably 2 million years, and maybe even longer. </div>
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The correct term for the lifestyle which lasted at least many hundred times longer than any other is Gatherer-Hunter, not Hunter-Gatherer, because the vast majority of their sustenance came from gathering fruits, nuts, roots, etc., with most of the small amount of meat coming from finding dead animals and a small percentage from hunting. (Although it will take some time for mainstream culture to catch up) <span class="s1">It makes sense that humans would choose to gather most of their food, because </span>hunting is comparatively both dangerous and much more work intensive. This is especially probable considering that the Earth <span class="s1">was surely much more abundant </span>prior to the last glacial period, known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%BCrm_glaciation"><span class="s2"><i>Würm</i></span></a><span class="s1">, which lasted from 70,000–10,000 years ago, compared to after, and even more compared to today, because </span>further processes of environmental degradation continued unabated ever since. </div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">THE GOOD LIFE</span></b></div>
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There is no room in the nomadic lifestyle for the accumulation of property, and hence no great differences in material possessions. Nomads typically only possess what they can carry, and any minimal level of social inequality is temporary (i.e. not inherited) and merit-based. That is, people can gain respect based on only their own actions (not those of their ancestors) - and there are no serious material privileges as a consequence. (<a href="http://dreamflesh.com/projects/war-noble-savage/" target="_blank">Gyrus</a>) As the American anthropologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Sahlins" target="_blank">Marshall Sahlins</a> observed in his 1968 essay on the ‘<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society" target="_blank">original affluent society</a>’:</div>
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Of the nomad it is truly said that his wealth is a burden. In his condition of life, goods can become ‘grievously oppressive’ … and the more so the longer they are carried around. Certain food collectors do have canoes and a few have dog sleds, but most must carry themselves all the comforts they possess, and so only possess what they can comfortably carry.</div>
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Sahlins coined the term "Original Affluence" to describe gatherer-hunter lifestyle. This concept of affluence means <span class="s1">"having enough of whatever is required to satisfy consumption needs, and plenty of free time to enjoy life". Foragers</span> achieve affluence by wanting little rather than producing a lot, thus free from greed. Nomads live in societies where the concept of material wealth is nearly nonexistent, and have plenty of "real" wealth, which is free time for leisure and creativity. The general high level of contentedness, satisfaction, happiness, and love of art, music, dance, and social games in many primordial groups such as the forest people of Central Africa, the Aborigines of Australia, and various indigenous peoples of the Americas is well documented. </div>
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Even today, this original lifestyle enjoyed by our ancestors for the vast majority of humanity's time on earth, although greatly diminished to near extinction, has nonetheless survived. In 2014, There are fully functioning nomadic, band level micro-societies which live in much the same way as this "Original Affluence", in Indonesia and other parts of S.E. Asia, the Amazon regions of South America, scattered throughout the land of Africa, among others places. Although there are differences among these remaining groups, they share many similarities. A very good example of today's gatherer-hunters, and the most studied of such groups, is the Dobe Ju/'hoansi people of Southern Africa, who live in and around the Kalahari Desert. A brief summary of the main characteristics of Dobe Society:</div>
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• gather 90+ percent of food</div>
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• zero starvation: 100% of population has enough food all the time</div>
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(compared to 30% starving in our modern industrial societies) </div>
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• work (acquiring food) 15 - 20 hours/week</div>
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• no division of labour other than sometimes between sexes </div>
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• does not distinquish between work and play</div>
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• little trade between groups</div>
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• no hierarchy, no authority, only "temporary leaders" for specific projects </div>
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• no private property</div>
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• very little to no social inequality, except things like respect for elders</div>
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• superb health </div>
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The very few surviving groups of nomads today have been increasingly, during countless waves of marginalization of the past 10,000 years, pushed by "civilized" peoples to the least abundant areas, the very edge of their former habitats. But even in such reduced and impoverished circumstances, studying some of them have lead sociologists to conclude that "scarcity is a myth", because people like the Dobe live without want 365 days a year.</div>
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Low Population density is obviously important to maintain these high standards of living, and various methods are employed by different groups, such as celibacy for all members for periods of 1 or 2 years after every birth, and processes of birth control and birth spacing. One study of child care among the Dobe found that women practiced an indirect form of birth control by extending infant breast feeding periods for several years. The stresses of lactation substantially reduced pregancy rates to produce average birth spacing of four years. The length of the period between births creates a direct benefit of avoiding the problem of having to carry more than one infant or toddler during seasonal movements, as well as the longer-term effect of keeping population sizes within limits that the resource base could comfortably support. </div>
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Very few rules exist in band level nomadic societies. In many such groups, besides the all important rule of no-surplus, the most significant rule is against competitiveness and expressions of individual ego. If any member demonstrates selfishness or behavior which stems from egoism and pride, he or she is ostracized for a period as punishment. (This is of course also exactly the opposite of our modern capitalist world order, where competitiveness is a virtue, <span class="s3">selfishness is rewarded, and individualism/egoism is praised, while discouraging social cohesion, punishing generosity, and repressing empathy.)</span></div>
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<span class="s4" style="font-size: large;"><b>HOW EVERYTHING CHANGED</b></span></div>
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<span class="s4">But paradise did not last, and the</span><span class="s5"><i> </i></span>glacial period came, covering large parts of the earth in ice and snow, causing millions of plant and animal species to become extinct. It is likely that the humans which managed to survive and emerged after this 30,000 year cold began farming out of necessity, finding themselves in much more depleted and barren landscapes after the snow melted. Thus the historic turning point came in the history of our species, and our lifestyle drastically changed, as most of humanity <span class="s6">transitioned from nomadic gatherer-hunters to sedentary agriculturalists, from band to tribe level societies*, around 10,000 years ago. </span></div>
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*Anthropologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elman_Service" target="_blank">Elman Service</a> presented a system of classification for societies in all human cultures based on the evolution of social inequality and the role of the state, containing four categories: </div>
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<li class="li4" style="text-align: justify;">Band: Gatherer-hunters, up to 100 members, no permanent, formal leader, egalitarian</li>
<li class="li3" style="text-align: justify;">Tribe: 100 - 300 members - Farmers, limited hierarchy, centralized leadership.</li>
<li class="li3" style="text-align: justify;">Chiefdom: roughly 300 - 1000 members, social stratification, strict hierarchy, centralized power.</li>
<li class="li3" style="text-align: justify;">State: millions of members, complex social stratification and centralized political power. </li>
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A great number of accounts exist of the initial transition from nomadic bands to sedentary tribes. For instance, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_people" target="_blank">San people</a> of Southern Africa (of which the Dobe Ju/'hoansi is one ethnic group) lived peacefully and sustainably for hundreds of thousands of years, before the arrival of Bantu tribes from the north. The Bantus brought farming methods and technology, caused food surpluses and a sharp spike in population, after which massive and bloody wars between tribes began. </div>
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<span class="s7"><span class="s7">There are also numerous </span><span class="s8">examples of the steady increase of levels of inequality and scale of violence after the rise of agriculture.</span> The isolated Enga tribe of Papua, New Guinea traditionally lived on taro, yam tubers, half-domesticated pigs, and some forest game. But the introduction of the sweet potato, a fast and easy growing crop from South America, caused a surge in food surplus. Left overs were fed to the pigs, whose population multiplied; and pigs came to be used as currency during trade. Thus a new political class emerged, who did not do any actual work, but began to control and manipulate trade for their own profit, becoming ultra wealthy compared to the poor farmers. With all of this any traces of egalitarianism vanished, and wars became ever bigger and more frequent. </span></div>
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This is how humanity traded quality for quantity, and gave up freedom and autonomy for hard work and security. Life was worse off in many other ways as well, such as the reduction of our diet from being based on thousands of different raw plants to only a few kinds of plants and cooked grains (carbohydrates), leading to the appearance of many new, modern diseases, such as cancer, which did not exist before and would plague us to this day. There are also <a href="http://www.leftinthedark.org.uk/" target="_blank">theories of neurological effects </a>of this change of diet, in terms of degenerative processes in the development of the human brain. Agriculture indeed brought so many ills to human life that the scientist Jarred Diamond called it <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race" target="_blank">The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race</a>**, in which he writes:</div>
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Besides malnutrition, starvation, and epidemic diseases, farming helped bring another curse upon humanity: deep class divisions. ... with the advent of agriculture the élite became better off, but most people became worse off. Instead of swallowing the progressivist party line that we chose agriculture because it was good for us, we must ask how we got trapped by it despite its pitfalls. One answer boils down to the adage "Might makes right." Farming could support many more people than hunting, albeit with a poorer quality of life. ... bands (which adopted agriculture) outbred and then drove off or killed the bands that chose to remain gatherer-hunters (my correction - Zhao), because a hundred malnourished farmers can still outfight one healthy hunter. It’s not that hunter-gatherers abandonded their life style, but that those sensible enough not to abandon it were forced out of all areas except the ones farmers didn’t want. </div>
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If the history of the human race began at midnight (and one hour represents 100,000 years), then we would now be almost at the end of our first day. We lived as gatherer-hunters for nearly the whole of that day, until at 11:54 p. m. we adopted agriculture. Gatherer-hunters practiced the most successful and longest-lasting life style in human history. In contrast, we’re still struggling with the mess into which agriculture has tumbled us, and it’s unclear whether we can solve it.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">**My only contention with Diamond's paper is his estimation of the short life span of pre-agricultural humans: is he talking about before or after the glacial period? Depending on which he means the answer is surely very different. With all the scientific conjectures we can make about environmental conditions and character of life before </span><span class="s2" style="font-size: x-small;">Würm</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">, it is not a stretch to conclude that our ancestors</span><span class="s2" style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">during that long period might have lived</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><i style="font-size: small;">longer</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">than us. (But then there were other factors such as predatory animals, so at best it is difficult to say one way or another)</span></div>
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With the new lifestyle came new divisions of labor, as farmers worked much more than before to provide food for all, and others now concentrated on things like making leather or weapons. The accumulation of more possessions than others brought more bargaining power for the rich, leading to exponential increase of wealth, which meant the upper classes could increasingly exploit the labor of lower classes for their own profit ("it is not enough to succeed. Others must fail." - Gore Vidal) The transition also brought the advent of centralized power, in the form of the first priest-kings, or shamens, who claimed to have more direct access to the divine, which justified their dominion over other members of society. The rest, as they say, is history. Social inequality steadily increased as societies became ever larger and more complex. The advancement of technology enabled even more drastically uneven distribution of wealth. until we arrive at the nations states of 2014, where 0.01% of the world's population owns the vast majority of wealth and power.</div>
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I am not advocating that we return to what's left of the forests or necessarily to a pre"civilized" lifestyle. But what i am certain of, is that self knowledge of the human race, and a clearer picture of our history is important. In order to imagine a better tomorrow, we need to realize that humans are indeed capable of living peacefully and sustainably together for long periods of time. Just as the African elder predicted in the ancient tale, today humanity faces <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists" target="_blank">crises on many fronts</a>, which together poses great threat to our survival along with other forms of life on earth, with perhaps inequity at the heart of the problem. Hard times lie ahead of us, but maybe also a chance at a new beginning, a chance to organize ourselves in better ways, guided by the wisdom of ancients. </div>
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zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-71943327457789469462013-09-10T12:30:00.001-07:002013-09-14T23:36:23.623-07:00NO DRUMS ALLOWED: Afro Rhythm Mutations in America<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Street bands playing Rock'n'Roll in Berlin, Marvin Gaye in a local bar in Thailand, Nas blaring on the streets of Johannesburg, House Music in the mega-clubs of Shang Hai - where ever one goes in the world today, no effort is needed to find African American music and its derivatives.<br />
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The embellishment of African derived rhythm/melody with European harmonics gave birth to Jazz, arguably the worlds most significant musical explosion of the millennium. In the 100 years since, African American music, which became largely synonymous with American music, has been exerting a tremendous amount of global influence. The spread of this influence accelerated even more after WW2, as the US became a global economic and military super power, aggressively pursuing a program of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_imperialism">cultural imperialism</a>, which increasingly saturated the world with its ideas, stories, images, and sounds.</div>
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But there is one peculiar thing which nearly all American music has in common - and the more one considers it, the more peculiar it becomes - an extensive emphasis on a unique rhythm, a rhythm very different from that which is found almost anywhere else in the world. It goes like this: Boom - Bap - Boom - Bap, with a kick drum on the 1 and 3 or all 4, a snare drum precisely on the 2 and 4, with nearly nothing in between except maybe a high hat, and no major hits ever landing off the grid. This rhythm is called the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter_(music)#Duple_meter" target="_blank">Duple</a>" in music theory, and you can find variations of it driving all modern popular American music styles: Blues, Motown, Soul, Funk, Rock, Disco, Hiphop, House, Pop, and beyond.<br />
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Duple Rhythm (beginning of video)<br />
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Classic Blues: </div>
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Motown/Disco/Pop<br />
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The pervasive dominance of this simplified, rigid, and mechanical mono-rhythm, minimizing poly-rhythmic elements in the music to the role of embellishment, sometimes to the point of non-existence, is very different from the focus on complex <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyrhythm">polyrhythms</a> in various forms of modern South American and Caribbean music. Cuban Son and Rumba, Brazillian Bossa Nova, Haitian Gwo Ka and Compas, Trinidadian Calypso; none of them rely so extensively on the Duple (besides sub-genres which were directly influenced by US exports, such as Ska Reggae, which heavily borrows from the Rhythm'n'Blues of the 50s).<br />
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Cuban <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_son" target="_blank">Son</a>:</div>
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Haitian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compas_music" target="_blank">Compas</a>:<br />
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And if we zoom out to look at great traditions of music of the world: Asia, Middle East, and of course, Africa, with zero exceptions, the Duple beat is never a central element, and hardly even exist at all in the major bodies of music produced by these ancient cultures. All of them are based on intricately interlocking polyrhythms arranged in hypnotic, complex mathematical patterns. (the much younger European classical tradition, which developed as entertainment for royalty and the rich, has always regarded rhythm as an element of the under classes and "primitives", and has "long discarded African music as an oddity of the animal kingdom" - Piero Scaruffi. With very few exceptions, these attitudes and a refusal to accept African music and its offspring continued all the way through the 20th century until today, which explains the increasing gap between it and the rest of the world.) (01)</div>
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Indonesian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamelan" target="_blank">Gamelan</a>:</div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_classical" target="_blank">Indian Classical</a>:</div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_traditional_music" target="_blank">Persian Classical</a>:</div>
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamou_language" target="_blank">Siamou</a> Music in Burkina Faso:</div>
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So how did North American modern music become so different? Why did the evolution of American rhythm take this unique path? The answer is surely very complex, including many elements such as Native American tribal influence and the folk music of the European colonists, most of which used relatively simple rhythms. But there is another, perhaps even more important factor which might explain this phenomenon, a single historical process which began in the early days of America. Historians and scholars have written much about it, but the story remains relatively untold in the public sphere. The following is a condensed, brief, and generalized version.</div>
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When first brought to North America during the 1600s and 1700s, slaves from the West coast of Africa used drums to communicate with each other in much the same way as they did at home, sending coded rhythmic messages over long distances, which the Europeans could not understand. In this way slaves held in different encampments could stay in contact, and rebellion could be planned. But after some time the masters realized that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_drums#How_they_.22talk.22">drums could talk</a>: </div>
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"…it is absolutely necessary to the safety of this Province, that all due care be taken to restrain Negroes from using or keeping of drums, which may call together or give sign or notice to one another of their wicked designs and purposes<span class="s1">." - Slave Code of South Carolina, Article 36 (1740)</span></div>
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Starting on the plantations of the Carolinas and Georgia, this ban soon spread nearly everywhere. Without drums, slaves used whatever was around to make beats: spoons, washboards, furniture, and their own bodies with hand-clapping, drumming on various surfaces of the body (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juba_dance">Patting Juba</a>), and foot-stomping and shuffling (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_shout">Ring Shout</a>). "It always rouses my imagination," wrote Lydia Parrish of the Georgia Sea Islands in 1942, "to see the way in which the McIntosh County 'shouters' tap their heels on the resonant floor to imitate the beat of the drum their forebears were not allowed to have."(02) These earlier practices are also the origin of modern forms such as Tap Dancing.<br />
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Slapping Juba:<br />
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Ring Shout:<br />
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The most widely used substitute for drums, partly because of its ready availability, was the human voice. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_hollers">Field Hollers</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_and_response">Call and Response</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_song">Work Songs</a>, Prison Songs, and all kinds of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocality">Vocality</a> were developed, with the voice often replicating drum patterns and to create <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpoint">counterpoints</a>, using standard singing, chanting, as well as extended techniques such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttural">guttural effects</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpolation_(music)">interpolated vocality</a>, <a href="http://falsetto/">falsetto</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melisma">melisma</a>, etc. Sounds of the work itself such as chopping wood or marching, as well as foot stomping or hand clapping during off hours, provided a basic, skeletal time signature, over which the polyrhythmic vocal sounds could improvise (the roots of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scat_singing">Scat Singing</a>). Sometimes imitating the beats of many drums in one line, these vocal elements filled the incremental temporal spaces between each clap of the hand or fall of the hammer, and played an important role in the preservation of African rhythmic heritage. <br />
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Slave Song:<br />
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Work Song:<br />
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Thus Afro rhythm traditions survived through mutation and adaptation, and formed the drum-less foundation of American music. The descendants of these earlier styles later became wildly popular beginning in the 19th Century: Ragtime, Minstrelsy, Spirituals, Salon Music, Jubilee, Blues, and Gospel (which has been called "percussion music without drums" by historians). The appropriation of Black slave music by White mainstream society started at this time, with the phenomenon of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface">Blackface</a> Minstrelsy. One of the first and most enduring artist/thieves was Stephen Foster, who took African derived rhythms played on the African derived instrument the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo">Banjo</a>, and incorporated them into songs such as "Oh Susana" (which became one of the most popular American songs ever). This, and the mixing of African slave traditions with European folk music were the origins of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_music">Country Music</a>: "One of the reasons country music was created by African Americans, as well as European Americans, is because blacks and whites in rural communities in the south often worked and played together" - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeFord_Bailey" target="_blank">DeFord Bailey</a> (03)<br />
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And because the drums were taken away, the forms of West African music which either were purely vocal or featured the voice prominently, traditionally played without drums, using simple instruments, such as many kinds of narrative song cycles in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griot">Griot</a> traditions of Mali and Senegal, took root in a big way and gained wide popularity in the deep South. No specific African musical form can be identified as the single direct ancestor of the blues, but many elements of the Blues, such as the call-and-response format and the use of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_notes">blue notes</a>, can be traced back to the music of Africa. (04)<br />
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Historians have also speculated that the Spanish slavers, who first set up colonies in the Americas in South America, at that time had not long expelled the North African Moors after 800 years of Islamic rule back home, preferred not to import Afro-Muslims. Thus a higher concentration of people from the Sahel/Mali/Senegal regions, many of whom were Muslim, ended up in North America, bringing with them their more vocal and string based traditions. While more people from the Congo/Ghana/Nigeria regions arrived in South America and the Caribbean, with their more extensive drumming traditions.<br />
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A classic sound collage (Alan Lomax) comparing traditional vocal music from Africa and vocal music from the Delta, alternating, line by line, between American and Senegalese singing:<br />
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the direct ancestor of the banjo was the Malian/Senegalese instrument Xalam or Ngoni, widely used by Griots:<br />
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There was one exception to this drum-lessness: due to the Catholic laws in Luisiana being different from the protestant ones in Georgia and the Carolinas, drums were not banned in New Orleans, <span class="s2">the center of the American slave trade, until much later, the second half of the 19th Century. This and other crucial social conditions were the ingredients of a series of cultural/musical explosions that would change the course of the entire world. </span><br />
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Prior to new waves of repression that would come, this port city directly connected to Cuba and the Caribbean, run by the French and Spanish, included a substantial <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creoles_of_color">Creole of colour</a> land-owning middle class, so that "black" was not automatically equated with slavery - an anomaly in the South at the time, to say the least. Before the 1890s when this mixed race group suddenly lost their privilege and equality, they participated in every level of society including politics, making a huge difference in terms of racial tolerance, inclusiveness, cultural exchange with Cuba, and the development of both local music as well as music in Cuba. <br />
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An economy based on trade meant less regimented attitudes and more respect for difference: "Untouched by the industrial revolution and less socially stressed than other plantation-oriented economies, New Orleans was able to retain the traditions of the various ethnic groups while they were rapidly being annihilated in the rest of the USA." - Piero Scaruffi (01) Also, Southern Europeans had somewhat different ideas from the Northern Europeans in their treatment of slaves, due to their countries of origin being closer to Africa, and already heavily influenced by African culture. New Orleans brothels allowed sex across the colour line (not just unheard of but completely INSANE in the 1800s) all the way until 1918, when the US government forced the mayor of New Orleans to segregate.<br />
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In this atmosphere of relative tolerance and less repressive laws, for much of the 19th century this opulent melting pot city was host to a vibrant nightlife, exotic rituals, tribal dances, pagan festivals, funeral marches and all kinds of parties which never seemed to stop. Further, there was one place, indeed the only place on the entire continent, the "Congo Square", <span class="s3">in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trem%C3%A9"><span class="s4">Tremé</span></a> neighborhood, </span>where slaves had for a long time been allowed to make music: "In Louisiana during the 18th century, slaves were commonly allowed Sundays off from their work. They were allowed to gather in the "Place de Negres", informally "Place Congo", where the slaves would set up a market, sing, dance, and play music." - Peter Kolchin (05)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjthlSP6sPVTD7J4VrRUNtBVICxAqF0bn0Cf2bUGpzsVvNW0jyZk8lRla6sfQHtI1Ak5TOrvSiYPfQwPxf6g46zgW-o3Dpx8XLcLhtKM3ee96Gb8WHTmbsQ6cJNXk8lETFs9O38Zw/s1600/nola+congo+square+sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjthlSP6sPVTD7J4VrRUNtBVICxAqF0bn0Cf2bUGpzsVvNW0jyZk8lRla6sfQHtI1Ak5TOrvSiYPfQwPxf6g46zgW-o3Dpx8XLcLhtKM3ee96Gb8WHTmbsQ6cJNXk8lETFs9O38Zw/s320/nola+congo+square+sign.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The dominant rhythmic figure popular in New Orleans and performed on Congo Square during this time, with origins in the many different slave musics of the Caribbean, is the three-stroke pattern known in Cuban music as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tresillo_(rhythm)">tresillo</a> (06). Louis Armstrong must have heard it plenty as a boy, growing up mere blocks from Congo Square. "Tresillo is the most basic and by far, the most prevalent duple-pulse rhythmic cell in sub-Saharan African music traditions, and the music of the African Diaspora." - David Peñalosa (07) In the post-Civil War period, African Americans in New Orleans were able to obtain surplus military bass drums, snare drums, fifes, trumpets and saxophones. As a result, an original African American <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6mRdPP6wRo" target="_blank">drum and fife music</a> arose, featuring tresillo and related syncopated rhythmic figures.</div>
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And s<span class="s5">o it was in the </span>brothels and bars of the red-light district <span class="s5">of New Orleans where a potent combination of Blues, </span><span class="s6">Ragtime, Quadrilles, Salon Music, </span><span class="s4">Afro-Latin music, Native American music, European folk music and Marching Bands, played by multi-racial musicians</span> <span class="s4">who shared a passion for syncopation and improvisation</span>,<span class="s4"> </span>with discarded military brass and reed instruments, <span class="s4">first </span><span class="s6">came together to form what we know as Jazz. </span><br />
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"It is probably safe to say that by and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz ... because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions. Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed. It may also account for the fact that patterns such as [tresillo have] ... remained one of the most useful and common syncopated patterns in jazz." - Gunther Schuller (08)</div>
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A few decades later a new hybrid style with even more reduced, simplistic, and obvious drum beats was born in the same city, in fact the exact same neighborhood: the first Rock 'n' Roll records were made in the Tremé district. "Without New Orlean's rich musical contribution there would have been no Elvis Presley or Beatles. Because both acts were heavily influenced by the songs recorded by Fats Domino and Little Richards at Cosimo Matassa's Studios (close to Congo Square)." - Fabian Jolivet.<br />
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So there you have it: Jazz and Rock'n'Roll, probably the 2 most<span class="s2"> significant American cultural exports ever, both born in the only place in America where for a few decades slaves were allowed to play drums and dance. </span><br />
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<span class="s5">Though New Orleans Jazz did sometimes use rhythm patterns more subtle and complex than the Duple (but still much less intricate and nuanced than its influences: Afro-Latin and African music), the much wider and older history of drum-lessness had a deeply profound effect on American music in general, and the Duple fundamentally shaped all popular music to come in the 20th Century. </span><br />
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There were of course other sources and reasons, both historical and modern: Native American music and Irish, Italian, German folk music such as the Oompah or Polka all used simple mono-rhythms; as well as modern environmental factors such as the rigid and repetitive sound of machines, factories, automobiles and trains in the industrialized landscape. <br />
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<span class="s5">Native American Ritual Music: </span><br />
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Irish Folk Music:</div>
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German Volkstümliche Musik:</div>
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All of these cultures contributed to the complex hybrid which is American music, but from where i'm standing, as a person from East Asia, an outsider to American music, to European music, and to African music alike, the origins of Jazz, Rock, Hiphop, etc. are clearly located much more in the blues and slave music from both at home and Latin America than traditions represented by the above 3 videos. If one accepts the seminal, foundational influence exerted by transplanted African culture, this legacy of drum-less evolution might just be the most important piece of the puzzle, the main answer to the question of how the Duple came to dominate American modern music.<br />
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But unlike African Americans who RE-invented their African musical heritage through memory and forgetfulness in a completely new context, Africans in Latin America and the Caribbean large preserved homeland drumming traditions, which survive nearly intact until today. (09) </div>
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Trinidadian Steel Drums are alive and very well:</div>
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Drums were also banned in the Caribbean, in places like Trinidad, but much later in the 19th Century. So the slaves had a stronger connection to African rhythm culture, which was apparent when they started using frying pans, dustbin lids and oil drums after the ban (as oil was an important national product), forming the Trinidadian tradition of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Pan" target="_blank">Steel Pan</a> and Steel Drum music (10). Similarly, drums were taken away from slaves in Cuba at a later time, and the roots of Rumba lies in Afro-Cubans playing African music with "<span class="s3">household items: the side of a cabinet functioned in the role of the present-day tumba or salidor (the primary supportive drum), while an overturned drawer served as the quinto (the lead drum) and a pair of spoons played the cáscara part on whatever was available." - </span><i>David Peñalosa</i> <span class="s3">(11) The handmade percussion instrument <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claves" target="_blank">Claves</a>, which</span><span class="s3"> came from </span>hitting wooden pegs together in shipyards to accompany slave work songs, is<span class="s3"> now a ubiquitous in all Cuban music and its derivatives from Son to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mambo_(music)" target="_blank">Mambo</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salsa_music" target="_blank">Salsa</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timba" target="_blank">Timba</a>, playing the</span> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clave_(rhythm)" target="_blank">Clavé</a> rhythm pattern of African origin.</div>
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<span class="s3">Afro-Brazilian percussion traditions are considered a national treasure:</span></div>
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<span class="s3">Other reasons for the stronger ties with African culture in the Caribbean and South America include the <a href="http://www.theroot.com/views/100-amazing-facts-about-negro-0">much greater number</a> of slaves (North America: </span>0.5 million<span class="s3">, Caribbean: </span>5 million<span class="s3">, South America: </span>5 million<span class="s3">); as well as slavery lasting much longer: Brazil until the 1880s, and Cuba until the 1890s. </span><span class="s3">Also important were certain practices in slavery: in places like </span>Cuba, unlike in North America, slaves were literally worked to death to increase the profit of the sugar trade. Since they were not bred to be sold (like in North America), fresh supplies had to be imported directly from Africa, a practice that continued in Havana until 1873. Thus Africans continued to arrive in South America constantly and much more frequently during the later period of the slave trade, maintaining their folkloric traditions through secret societies (particularly <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoruba_culture" target="_blank">Yoruba</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongo_language" target="_blank">Kikongo</a>)<span class="s3"> </span><span class="s7">(12), producing amazing cultural hybrids such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capoeira" target="_blank">Capoeira</a> and music like in the videos above and below. </span></div>
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<span class="s7">Cuban Music and dance and its strong connection to African forms:</span></div>
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As we have seen, rhythm in America took on a very much unique and drastically different character, <span class="s5">as result of a particular historical process, a specific evolutionary path. This can be acutely felt today: c</span>onsider Hip Hop: the simple, skeletal "BOOM - BAP" beat is the modern version of foot-stomping and hand-clapping, performing the same function of time-keeping, and just as 500 years ago, complex vocal delivery (rap) fills in all the fractions of time between, imitating and substituting for drum patterns - a mutated continuation of African musical heritage.<br />
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Usually the first reaction from Americans when this story is told is defensiveness. But while it is indisputable that American rhythm is in general relatively more simplified and rigid compared to most of the rest of the world, it's not necessarily a bad thing. The raw physical force of simplicity, that punch-you-in-the-gut-and-make-you-see-stars brute power of American modern music can not be denied. Due to its development through the legacy of oppression and misery, American music is still without a doubt the best for expression of anger, frustration, and resentment in a modern world filled with injustice. On another level, perhaps rigid, mechanical rhythms just suits our rigid and mechanical urban lifestyles better than organic polyrhythms; and the information saturated and sound polluted environments in which we live might explain the modern taste for stripped down and minimalistic beats. Besides, the understatement of subtle, implicit, or <i>suggested </i>polyrhythms in a lot of African American music gives it beautiful new qualities and possibilities not found in African music. (with that said i personally prefer Fela Kuti to James Brown :P)</div>
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But in many ways strong and explicit use of African polyrhythms is returning to African American music, from the self-conscious attempts to reconnect with Motherland culture made by musicians in the 1960s and 70s to the Chicago Juke/Footwork of today. It seems unlikely that only 1 type of rhythm can sustain all these different kinds of music for long, and i think we are currently in the process of a global polyrhythmic revival. <br />
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Juke/Footwork:<br />
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Chicago Street Percussion:<br />
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Now we come to the grand finale, rainbow-in-the-sky, lighters-in-the-air, closing message of this long and dense story which spans half a millennium: African rhythm heritage not only survives, but THRIVES, in any hostile environment, despite every hardship, against every repressive measure, in defiance of all forces that tries to destroy it.<br />
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Thanks to <a href="http://www.undergroundpress.co.za/index.php/component/k2/item/91-an-interview-with-keith-jones">Keith Jones</a>, <a href="http://wayneandwax.com/">Wayne Marshall</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_James">Darius James</a>.<br />
<br />
(01) Scaruffi, Piero. <i>A History of Popular Music before Rock Music.</i><br />
(02) Palmer, Robert<i>. Deep Blues. </i><br />
(03) Kingsbury Paul.<i> The encyclopedia of country music: the ultimate guide to the music.</i><br />
(04) Barbara Vierwo.<i> Andy Trudeau. The Curious Listener's Guide to the Blues.</i><br />
(05) Kolchin, Peter.<i> American Slavery,</i><br />
(06) Sublette, Ned. <i>The World that made New Orleans: from Spanish silver to Congo Square.</i><br />
(07) Peñalosa, David. <i>The Clave Matrix; Afro-Cuban Rhythm: Its Principles and African Origins.</i><br />
(08) Schuller, Gunther. <i>Early Jazz; Its Roots and Musical Development.</i><br />
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<span class="s1">(09) </span>Palmer, Robert. <i>Deep Blues</i>.</div>
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<span class="s1">(10) Saldenha, Robert. <i>Another Look At The History Of The Steel Band</i></span><br />
(11) Peñalosa, David. <i>Rumba Quinto</i>. </div>
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(12) Sublette, Ned. <i>A History of Cuba and its Music.</i></div>
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ADDENDUM: </div>
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Over the years i've heard people say things like "at least slavery gave us good music", or "without slavery music would be boring". </div>
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To this i respond: </div>
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1. Cultures mix via trade and other means all the time, such as the cultures all along the "Silk Road" trade routes: for example Turkish ideas inspired Chinese music and vice versa, without war or violence, and the resulting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_music" target="_blank">Uyghur music</a> is anything but boring. Similarly, Africa could have met Europe in a number of different ways, without subjugation or slavery. </div>
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<span class="s2">2. </span>Given that much of American music was born in the only place where slaves were allowed to make music, what kinds of creativity would have blossomed from the meeting of African and European musical ideas, if the slaves were allowed to make music all over America? What If there was no slavery at all and musicians could collaborate and inspire each other on equal footing?? And what if Europeans were never blinded by ignorance and racism, and had combined their developed harmony with sophisticated African rhythm starting from a much earlier time???</div>
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3. Slavery created the need to express anger, sadness and resentment through music, and we have come to prize and "enjoy" these qualities in music. But we should not get confused and believe these qualities to be inherently, naturally good. Because without that legacy of abuse we would not enjoy angry and sad music at all, and would have come to appreciate other qualities instead. </div>
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4. Yes something good can come out of any catastrophic and violent injustice; but this is because of the strength of people and endurance of culture, not because of the injustice. </div>
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5. Any argument that any part of slavery, how ever small, was good in any way, is an attempt to justify racist violence.<br />
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zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-45046622632450572542013-07-16T06:09:00.002-07:002013-07-16T06:55:45.103-07:00BERLIN - Rebel Metropolis in Transition<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A Chinese national magazine has asked me to write a short piece on Berlin: </div>
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On the occasional sunny days of this unusually cold summer, Berliners spend as much time outside as possible. The heavily graffiti covered streets, numerous parks, and all kinds of public spaces including in front of government buildings, are littered with groups of friends having picnics, grilling, drinking beer, from noon deep into the night, and the sweet smell of marijuana is nearly everywhere. It is the kind of city where, after the sun sets you look around, where ever you are, and can likely count the number of people over 30 on 1 hand. The Mayor is openly gay and can be seen at dance clubs with his boyfriend, club parties go from midnight to noon the next day, taking (not selling) most popular drugs is legal, police are rarely seen, and compared to almost anywhere else in the world, in Berlin there is an incredible feeling of freedom.</div>
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During the post WW2 development years major industry moved, and many big corporations settled in the Southern and other parts of Germany due to a variety of reasons including lower tax rates, and cities like Munich and Frankfurt have become rich (and with that, as is almost always the case, politically conservative). With the absence of big money, and left over socialist health, welfare, and other social programs, Berlin has become a society of relative equality, with relatively even income/wealth distribution. The gap between rich and poor is for sure growing, and with increasing rapidity during recent years, but as of 2013, still only a fraction of that of London or New York. The unemployment rate fluctuates between 25 and 30% - astronomical for a major city - and if this was Los Angeles there would be daily guns and bombs, open warfare in the streets (shit, even with the 9% or whatever it is they have in LA, it already is!). However, in Berlin people are not suffering anywhere near that level: homeless people (if you don't count the crusty punks) are seldom seen, and there is no such thing as a real "ghetto" (again, compared to other major Western, especially American, cities). With the absence of drastic inequity also comes the absence of obsession with wealth, class, status, and its symbols, the kind of obsession normalized in the United States. In Berlin no one gives a shit OR a fuck how much money or how many "important friends" you have, or what social circles you run in - maybe that's why some Hollywood celebrities like to hang out here and spend some comparatively relaxed and normal days. </div>
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Berlin has been, for at least a century, famous for its art, music, and nightlife, even more so in the post-war decades. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, and becoming the capital of not only East Germany but of the entire nation, the city has evolved a culture drastically different from other parts of Germany, with its ultra progressive, tolerant, and promiscuous attitudes. The cultural center of Berlin keeps moving and shifting: during the 1990s it was Prenzlauer Berg, part of the former East, where all the crazy artists and drug users lived in illegal squats, and made art galleries and night clubs out of abandoned basements. It was in these underground and unofficial spaces where what we know as "Berlin culture", of which the legacy of electronic and experimental music is an important part, evolved; Chicago House, Detroit Techno and other Afro-American dance and pop music, Italo-Disco, German electronic music stemming from the Kraut-Rock tradition, and later Jamaican Reggae and Dub, were the potent ingredients which gave rise to the now world famous Berlin Techno sound. It is a rigidly mechanical, repetitively introverted and horizontally hypnotic music of deep patience and incremental changes within sameness, matching the city of few buildings taller than 6 or 7 stories, which for more than half the year is mired in frigidly cold weather, perfectly. The former East side of town was also home to legendary industrial and experimental noise/electronic/rock group Einstürzende Neubauten (name translates to "Collapsing New Buildings"), where one of their 90s concerts on the 1st of May in Helmholzplatz turned into a historical confrontation with police. 1st of May, the traditional worker's day has now become a day of official protest in the city, where anti-authoritarian Leftist youths show their feelings toward capitalism and the powers that be. Helmholzplatz used to be called L.S.D. park, where anarchistic hedonism and lawless creativity ruled, but is now surrounded by a suburbanized neighborhood of baby-strollers, chic apartments, and stylish cafes. The hip part of the city since the early 2000s has moved geographically South to the former West, first to Kreuzberg and then now even further to Neukölln. These neighborhoods are today a lot more colorful and diverse than the North side, filled with Turkish naturalized citizens and immigrants, as well as the ubiquitous international hipsters, and is often compared to the Brooklyn of a decade or 2 past. Most of the big cultural events such as Karneval der Kulturen, many major dance clubs such as Tresor and Berghain, as well as countless underground art and music spaces are located in or around these areas (even the Day of Protest has moved to Oberbaumbrücke in Kreuzberg). However, the latest rumor is that areas like Wedding and Charlottenburg, largely unexplored and long neglected areas, may become the next hot spots. </div>
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Berlin is still known for its liberating and creative energy, its wild and hedonistic character, having been rated as the hippest city in Europe by major publications as recent as 2012. But the forces of gentrification has been closing in, turning many independent art and music spaces into shopping malls and luxury lofts for the rich. And while the influx of an international "creative class" has added to the city's character, ubiquitous hipsters and yuppies has at the same time surely diluted the city's uncompromising and stubbornly rebellious spirit. </div>
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Dj Zhao is a Chinese/American journalist, Dj, and visual designer living in Berlin, and can be found at <a href="http://www.ngomasound.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">www.ngomasound.com</a></div>
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zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-8579203634829872372012-11-29T12:32:00.004-08:002012-12-04T02:53:34.507-08:00The New Denial<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In a Johannesburg bookstore i came across a big hardback volume called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Africa-Poor-Africans-About/dp/0143026615">Why Africa is So Poor</a>, and on the back was this blurb: <br />
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<a href="http://penguinbooks.co.za/sites/penguinbooks.co.za/files/styles/jacket-large/public/cover/WhyAfricaPoor-PB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://penguinbooks.co.za/sites/penguinbooks.co.za/files/styles/jacket-large/public/cover/WhyAfricaPoor-PB.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>
"This book shows that African poverty is not because the world has denied the continent the market and financial means to compete… Nor is African poverty solely a consequence of poor infrastructure or trade access …Greg Mills controversially shows that the main reason why Africa's people are poor is because their leaders have made this choice."<br />
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I have also been encountering this kind of thinking in everyday life: most recently an American "global bass" dj told me that "Africa just needs to <i>stop acting like a bitch</i> and <i>man-up</i>" adding that "it is their own corruption which is the real problem". A while back some Germans told me much the same thing, that "The West" no longer has anything to do with today's affliction and misfortune in Africa, and that we should all stop dredging up the past. Routine disavowal and willful ignorance have surely always played central roles in our brave new world, but these attitudes seem to comprise a new intensified wave of right wing denialism which renews a sense of European superiority during a time of economic turmoil, provides false moral grounds for the shirking of responsibility, and reinforces centuries old racism. Let us look at exactly what is wrong with this grade A+ Bullshit:<br />
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• Claims of internal corruption being the primary reason for poverty in many parts of Africa today ignore historical facts of the African people's chosen leaders being <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/17/patrice-lumumba-50th-anniversary-assassination">systematically removed</a> by Western powers due to non-compliance with foreign interests, and corrupt lap dog dictators installed in their place, who sells out their own people for personal gain, dooming entire populations to decades of famine, war, and disease.<br />
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• Claims of incompetence being responsible for under development leave out a multitude of manipulative measures (such as "Aid") with which foreign agents keeps real development from happening, thus keeping routes open for their continuing exploitation. <br />
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• These claims disavow the long term interest of multi-nationals to keep areas such as the Congo unstable and in conflict. <br />
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• These claims deny fundamental colonial causation of problems in the very structure of society and in every sphere of life, which are entirely too numerous to list here*, the effects of which not only live on, but ripple and multiply with each day. <br />
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• These claims take none of this into account, saying instead: "Africans simply can not govern themselves, and as soon as we leave, they mess everything up" - calling a man weak after stabbing him in the back. <br />
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Superficially, this kind of selective observation and false reasoning may seem either relatively harmless or at the most, only misinformed. But upon closer inspection it unmistakably stems from and validates the same Eurocentric, Social Darwinist, and white suprematist ideology which justified systematic decimation of native peoples for the past 4 centuries. Ultimately, according to this logic, the only possible reason that "Africans can not govern themselves" is "inherent (racial) inferiority" - these claims which blame the victims not only reveal the deep racism of those who make them, they allow injustice and horror to continue unabated. People who make these claims, just like the ones who deny artificial conflict created by the Dutch masters between the Hutus and Tutsis as one of the central cause of the Rwandan Genocide, and instead cite fictional "ancient tribal hatred" as explanation, are fundamentally no different than Holocaust deniers, and not one bit less morally irresponsible or reprehensible. <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.alarabiya.net/e3/34/640x392_53269_247471.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="196" src="http://images.alarabiya.net/e3/34/640x392_53269_247471.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">French former Defence Minister giving Algeria "The Arm"</td></tr>
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Plenty of other examples exist, such as Germany's <a href="http://www.dw.de/germany-refuses-to-acknowledge-herero-massacres-as-genocide/a-15830118">refusal</a> to call the Namibian Genocide what it is, under pressure from other former colonial powers - because if Germany was to start using the G word, the others would also have to recognize the extent of similar atrocities, and forced to pay reparations. Similarly, the French former defense minister's recent <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/11/03/247471.html">response</a> to Algerian request for recognition of colonial war crimes (photo) more than adequately illustrates this New Denial - it is a much easier option than any other. And last but not least we have the likes of wildly popular right-wing historian <a href="http://newamerica.net/publications/articles/2011/niall_ferguson_and_the_brain_dead_american_right_51843">Niall Ferguson</a>, one of top 100 most influential people according to TIME magazine, saying things like "the British Empire was mostly a good thing, at least we brought civilization to the savages". His books, which include <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Empire-Britain-Made-Modern-World/dp/0141007540">Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World</a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Civilization-Killer-Apps-Western-Power/dp/0141044586/ref=la_B000APQ8G0_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1354286362&sr=1-4">Civilization: The Six Killer Apps of Western Power</a>, deny not only British Empire's pandemic destruction of culture and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/08/empire-torture-kenya-catastrophe-europe?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038">atrocities</a> against vast numbers of human beings in Africa and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts">around the world</a>, but also, more importantly, Britain's <a href="http://www.enotes.com/exterminate-all-brutes-salem/exterminate-all-brutes">primary authorship</a> of the ideological constructs which made the holocaust possible.<br />
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I have nothing but respect and admiration for the strength in my African sisters and brother's hearts when they talk of reconciliation, forgiveness, and moving on; and do of course recognize the importance of letting go of the past and positivity for the way forward. But while In the 21st Century by far not the only part of the globe still struggling with problems directly or indirectly resulting from colonialism, the situation in Africa is among the very worst, especially with the constant and increased presence of a <a href="http://www.thisisafrica.me/opinion/detail/19478/Africa%27s-natural-resources%3A-If-we-don%E2%80%99t-protect-our-interests%2C-who-will%3F">predatory international economic order</a>. Many African nations are not yet ready to do what China did in 1984 - telling the former British colonizers "thank you for waking us up", in other words: "spare us your crocodile tears, just fuck off" - because the neo-colonial knife, unlike with China, is still firmly planted in their backs - and no real progress can be made until its removal. <br />
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*arbitrary national boundaries which divide ethnic groups; inequality fostered within populations; introduction of forms of governance and legal systems which go against local customs; suppression of education; banning of local languages; destruction of indigenous culture; collective psychological trauma from centuries of violence and oppression; etc, etc, etc, etc.<br />
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zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-1745638962230653702012-03-13T11:20:00.001-07:002012-03-13T11:21:20.898-07:00Why are we surprised?Abu Ghraib was no aberration, the recent pissing on corpses was no exception, and neither was last week's murder spree. quite the opposite, they are not only part of a larger <a href="http://theamericanscholar.org/a-gathering-menace/">culture</a> developing in these places, incidents like this reveal the very essence of US ideology which drives foreign policy, they uncover the precise nature of these wars, of the real underlying American sentiment toward these wars, toward the people who have been constructed as enemies.<br /><br />Bush jr. was unjustly criticized at the time for his use of words, because they were extremely accurate: "crusade". That's exactly what it always was: a civilizing mission to bring the light of Freedom and Democracy to uncultured primitives who are so backward that they are barely human.<br /><br />With rhetoric like this as justification and guidance, no one should be surprised if a few occasional stories, out of no doubt tens of thousands, should surface.zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-35745696889976087522012-03-12T12:45:00.003-07:002013-06-10T08:26:32.202-07:00What is Very Wrong with KONY2012 <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
They give a man 1 fish to feed a family of 10, after having taken 1,000 fishes from him, while continuing to take massive quantities of fish from him every day, with no plans to stop taking fish from him, ever.<br />
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The giving of 1 fish makes the givers feel good, and makes them forget about having taken 1000 fish before, and makes it possible for the taking of fish to continue.*<br />
<br />
The sentiment, the sympathy, the emotionalism, the tears, the "caring", the charity, the aid -- it is all an integral part of the machine which keeps plundering, raping and murdering Africa (and S. America and S.E. Asia).<br />
<br />
The "apolitical" rhetoric of humanitarianism often cloaks, justifies, and ultimately equals military interventionism (intervention which serves economic and political self interest, beneath the talk of aid). Just like the allegedly "neutral" language of "free market", business, and development always conceals hegemonic ideology.<br />
<br />
*fish stops being a metaphor and becomes literal when it comes to the Somalian Pirates.<br />
<br />
and within the problematic world of Charity and Aid, Invisible Children is especially worrying: <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.blackstarnews.com/news/122/ARTICLE/6586/2010-06-02.html">How Invisible Children Falsely Marketed The LRA Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act</a><br />
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/uganda/9131469/Joseph-Kony-2012-growing-outrage-in-Uganda-over-film.html"><br />growing outrage in Uganda over film</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<br />
TOTAL REVENUE $13,765,180<br />
TOTAL FUNCTIONAL EXPENSES $8,894,632</blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Advocating increased militarization of a government with plenty of human rights abuses, in order to catch a drastically diminished warlord who left the country 6 years ago, is not what Uganda needs.<br />
<br />
It is unethical to knowingly misrepresent a war for any reason, least of all self aggrandizement and paychecks (likely not only from the bulk of revenue, but also likely from Ugandan military)<br />
<br />
Invisible Children's super-hero fantasies of white men coming to save Africa make it even easier to disavow historical Western complicity and causation in African atrocities, from Rwanda Genocide to Congo War to LRA.<br />
<br />
Again the westerners use the misery that they helped to create to make money and themselves look good while condescending toward and blaming the victim.<br />
<br />
the West, and the US, did a lot to cause situations like this and monsters like Kony -- and things like Invisible Children furthers Western/US ideological agendas, not only reinforcing racist notions of superiority, not only prevents accountability for, or even admission of, direct or indirect crimes against humanity on the African continent, but makes it possible for them to keep exploiting, and create more future monsters.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">1- From Sachs to Kristof to Invisible Children to TED, the fastest growth industry in the US is the White Savior Industrial Complex.<br /><br />2- The white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening.<br /><br />3- The banality of evil transmutes into the banality of sentimentality. The world is nothing but a problem to be solved by enthusiasm.<br /><br />4- This world exists simply to satisfy the needs—including, importantly, the sentimental needs—of white people and Oprah.<br /><br />5- The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.<br /><br />6- Feverish worry over that awful African warlord. But close to 1.5 million Iraqis died from an American war of choice. Worry about that.<br /><br />7- I deeply respect American sentimentality, the way one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it is deadly. </span> - Teju Cole @tejucole</div>
zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-47381649967877531042012-02-14T00:54:00.001-08:002012-02-14T00:54:41.397-08:002012There can be no reconciliation between total despair wrt the global situation, and a confident, cheerful disposition in the everyday sphere. Nor between knowing that nearly everything about the way we live is wrong, being aware of the epic scale cruelty and violence supported by our daily life, and making that life livable.zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-1486561765407235472011-12-11T14:09:00.000-08:002016-04-12T00:03:59.174-07:00Howl<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
i saw the best minds of my generation seduced by<br />
advertising, distracted aloof oblivious,<br />
serving clients in chic offices in the afternoon<br />
after the next big project,<br />
accessorized hipsters apathetic to the world outside<br />
their little insulated bubbles refusing to see the bigger context,<br />
who amused and sarcastic and ego-driven and narcissistic sat<br />
up laughing in the artificial dinge of<br />
fashionable bars floating through gentrified parts of the city<br />
contemplating salaries,<br />
who bared their brains for career within agencies and<br />
saw lifestyle brands reaching target audiences successful,<br />
who passed through startups with sexy cool eye wear<br />
dreaming of fame attending exclusive social functions<br />
among the celebrities of tomorrow,<br />
who graduated with honors from the academies for cleverness;<br />
publishing novel ideas on their edgy personal blogs,<br />
who conformed upwardly mobile in tasteful denim,<br />
untouched by distant horrors reduced to sound bytes and choosing<br />
to ignore their removed complicity in it all...</div>
zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-54419647344391049242011-11-07T04:45:00.000-08:002011-11-07T04:46:40.363-08:00Manufacturing Consentjust in case you have not read or seen it. like me. <br /><embed id=VideoPlayback src=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-5631882395226827730&hl=en&fs=true style=width:400px;height:326px allowFullScreen=true allowScriptAccess=always type=application/x-shockwave-flash> </embed>zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-29548890648284941202011-10-03T18:37:00.000-07:002011-10-03T18:40:30.040-07:00Killing Hope<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ee6SdmmCN5Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Killing Hope: US Military and CIA<br />Interventions Since World War II.</span><br /><br />by William Blum<br /><br />Table of Contents<br /><br /> Introduction<br /> 1. China - 1945 to 1960s: Was Mao Tse-tung just paranoid?<br /> 2. Italy - 1947-1948: Free elections, Hollywood style<br /> 3. Greece - 1947 to early 1950s: From cradle of democracy to client state<br /> 4. The Philippines - 1940s and 1950s: America's oldest colony<br /> 5. Korea - 1945-1953: Was it all that it appeared to be?<br /> 6. Albania - 1949-1953: The proper English spy<br /> 7. Eastern Europe - 1948-1956: Operation Splinter Factor<br /> 8. Germany - 1950s: Everything from juvenile delinquency to terrorism<br /> 9. Iran - 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings<br />10. Guatemala - 1953-1954: While the world watched<br />11. Costa Rica - Mid-1950s: Trying to topple an ally - Part 1<br />12. Syria - 1956-1957: Purchasing a new government<br />13. Middle East - 1957-1958: The Eisenhower Doctrine claims another backyard for America<br />14. Indonesia - 1957-1958: War and pornography<br />15. Western Europe - 1950s and 1960s: Fronts within fronts within fronts<br />16. British Guiana - 1953-1964: The CIA's international labor mafia<br />17. Soviet Union - Late 1940s to 1960s: From spy planes to book publishing<br />18. Italy - 1950s to 1970s: Supporting the Cardinal's orphans and techno-fascism<br />19. Vietnam - 1950-1973: The Hearts and Minds Circus<br />20. Cambodia - 1955-1973: Prince Sihanouk walks the high-wire of neutralism<br />21. Laos - 1957-1973: L'Armée Clandestine<br />22. Haiti - 1959-1963: The Marines land, again<br />23. Guatemala - 1960: One good coup deserves another<br />24. France/Algeria - 1960s: L'état, c'est la CIA<br />25. Ecuador - 1960-1963: A text book of dirty tricks<br />26. The Congo - 1960-1964: The assassination of Patrice Lumumba<br />27. Brazil - 1961-1964: Introducing the marvelous new world of death squads<br />28. Peru - 1960-1965: Fort Bragg moves to the jungle<br />29. Dominican Republic - 1960-1966: Saving democracy from communism by getting rid of democracy<br />30. Cuba - 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution<br />31. Indonesia - 1965: Liquidating President Sukarno … and 500,000 others<br /> East Timor - 1975: And 200,000 more<br />32. Ghana - 1966: Kwame Nkrumah steps out of line<br />33. Uruguay - 1964-1970: Torture -- as American as apple pie<br />34. Chile - 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead<br />35. Greece - 1964-1974: "Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution," said<br /> the President of the United States<br />36. Bolivia - 1964-1975: Tracking down Che Guevara in the land of coup d'etat<br />37. Guatemala - 1962 to 1980s: A less publicized "final solution"<br />38. Costa Rica - 1970-1971: Trying to topple an ally -- Part 2<br />39. Iraq - 1972-1975: Covert action should not be confused with missionary work<br />40. Australia - 1973-1975: Another free election bites the dust<br />41. Angola - 1975 to 1980s: The Great Powers Poker Game<br />42. Zaire - 1975-1978: Mobutu and the CIA, a marriage made in heaven<br />43. Jamaica - 1976-1980: Kissinger's ultimatum<br />44. Seychelles - 1979-1981: Yet another area of great strategic importance<br />45. Grenada - 1979-1984: Lying -- one of the few growth industries in Washington<br />46. Morocco - 1983: A video nasty<br />47. Suriname - 1982-1984: Once again, the Cuban bogeyman<br />48. Libya - 1981-1989: Ronald Reagan meets his match<br />49. Nicaragua - 1981-1990: Destabilization in slow motion<br />50. Panama - 1969-1991: Double-crossing our drug supplier<br />51. Bulgaria 1990/Albania 1991: Teaching communists what democracy is all about<br />52. Iraq - 1990-1991: Desert holocaust<br />53. Afghanistan - 1979-1992: America's Jihad<br />54. El Salvador - 1980-1994: Human rights, Washington style<br />55. Haiti - 1986-1994: Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?<br />56. The American Empire - 1992 to present<br /><br /><br />http://killinghope.org/zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-57399856236280923222011-09-20T21:29:00.000-07:002016-08-24T03:14:19.383-07:00The Tree of Life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span data-offset-key="63htm-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Before seeing The Tree of Life i had no idea that the lives of rich white people can be so deeply moving in such profoundly cliche ways. i had no idea that their privileged private tragedies are connected with the suffering of like, DINOSAURS from the TURN OF THE LAST ICE AGE. Coupled with amazing use of stock footage, whispering, and befuddled story arc, this is truly a masterpiece in sophomoric pretension and pure, grade A+ horse shit.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="5qdih-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">To drive the point home, the film's inclusion of a few scenes showing the disenfranchised, blacks, and mexicans provided a silent background for the drama of our upper class main characters to unfold. All of this makes it all too clear that the lives of the underclass is filled with common place misery and garden variety pain, nothing remotely similar or even comparable to the intensely poetic, exalted, noble, transcendent and COSMIC suffering of the rich, set to an ethereal and elegiac soundtrack of Mahler's soprano solos, ECM favorites like Górecki and Tavener, and emotive pieces from the top 40 Classical cannon. So deep... BBBAAARRRFFF</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="aa5vf-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">While i always like to see more abstraction in films, and in some ways this one can be said to be pushing the envelope, it ends up as nothing more than a garishly sentimental bourgeois product just like the suburban setting it takes place in. Hallmark™ Surrealism at its finest.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="casas-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">i can't believe how many otherwise (seemingly) non-stupid people are praising this rubbish.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="cn0n5-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Do not, i repeat, do NOT mention </span><span class="_5u8u" data-offset-key="cn0n5-1-0" spellcheck="false" style="background-color: #dce6f8; font-family: inherit;"><span data-offset-key="cn0n5-1-0" style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;">Andrei Tarkovsky</span></span></span><span data-offset-key="cn0n5-2-0" style="font-family: inherit;">s' The Mirror in the same paragraph or page as this supreme idiocy.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="n9pe-0-0" style="font-family: inherit;">Ehen hollywood tries to be artsy it makes me want to dig my eyes out with a rusty tea spoon. i knew we should have seen Transformers 3 instead.</span></div>
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zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-40102275555166098582011-09-07T07:55:00.000-07:002011-09-07T07:56:31.528-07:00a little perspective<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://religiouscomics.net/my_images/spaceb.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://religiouscomics.net/my_images/spaceb.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />click to enlarge.zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-25105655730555157852011-05-03T23:03:00.000-07:002011-05-03T23:11:00.861-07:00night in Merano<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://files0.caprionline.it/article/1104_Dolomiti/image/1_l.20091209221925.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 424px; height: 230px;" src="http://files0.caprionline.it/article/1104_Dolomiti/image/1_l.20091209221925.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>This part of northern italy used to be inhabited by the Ladin (hold the OBL jokes) people, before the arrival of Italians and Germans roughly 800 years ago. Through out the centuries the natives have become increasingly displaced and marginalized, politically, economically, physically: and ended up moving to the mountains to "wait for an age of eternal peace" after losing a final battle with Germanic tribes.<br /><br />Only 2-300 years ago the main language in these parts was Ladin, a form of old Latin, before being over taken by Italian and German. The downfall of the Ladin people continued to WW2 times, when, at the possible lowest, they were reduced to nomadic "tinkerers" who moved from place to place with horse drawn carriages, making little wooden sculptures here and selling little gadgets there. Yet from the very bottom and outskirts of society, they have consistently produced amazing artists of all kinds: influential film makers, conceptual artists (one of Gilbert and George, etc.), and musicians (Giorgio Moroder, etc. -- Fun Fact: the Top Gun soundtrack was produced in these very mountains).<br /><br />Today there are only about 30,000 Ladin speakers left; but they are doing quite well for themselves up in the Dolemite mountains with ski resorts and tourism.<br /><br />there you go, something wikipedia can not tell you. thanks to Haimo Perkmann for imparting this bit of local history over Tyrolean dumplings (more like matzo balls) last night.zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-27321605077380269162011-03-17T03:11:00.000-07:002011-03-17T03:12:43.989-07:00Perceptual Shiftbadly recorded sweet and groovy little songs from 1950s Congo > self-important people behind laptops making serious "sound works" in front of spectacular video projections.<br /><br />in terms of pure form, structure, mathematics, musical ideas, theory, and practice; in terms of performance art and ephemeral social sculpture weaved within the fabric of everyday life; in terms of dynamic engagement with audience -- in nearly every important way.zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-60195961036665593512011-03-16T23:09:00.000-07:002011-03-16T23:10:23.457-07:00.<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lUcTvhyof8I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-27674780558903536342011-01-02T01:37:00.000-08:002011-01-12T07:11:01.548-08:00israel-palestine revisionnot that it matters at all to the world or anyone in any way shape or form what i think, but have just been given some historical information with which many others are no doubt familiar, but i was ignorant of before, that makes necessary a partial revision of my previous (almost entirely pro-palestine and against israel) position toward the entire ongoing conflict. namely, the proposal and rejection of the Partition of Palestine back in 1947:<br /><br /><blockquote>In November 1947, the United Nations voted in favor of the partition of Palestine, proposing the creation of a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a UN-administered Jerusalem.[16] Partition was accepted by the Zionist leadership but rejected by Arab leaders, and a civil war began. Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948 and neighboring Arab states invaded the next day. Since then, Israel has fought a series of wars with neighboring Arab states,[17] and has occupied territories, including the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, beyond those delineated in the 1949 Armistice Agreements.</blockquote><br /><br />and then a friend clarifies a bit: <br /><br /><blockquote>considering what happened in the war, why wasn't there a country carved out for the roma? it is the holocaust that got the world behind a jewish state perhaps, but the modern Jewish state was not born out of WW2. ... there are several books out there that can provide the history of zionism and the origins of the state of israel...<br /><br />i don't think the majority of people in palestine in the 20s through 40s wanted jews to leave the region. there were obvious tensions (especially after the Balfour Declaration, where it became obvious to those in Palestine the intentions of creating a separate Jewish state), but no where near the anti-Semitism in the West. in fact, most colonial sources agree that tensions between Zionist immigrants and the local Christian and Muslim Arabs was BECAUSE of the Balfour Declaration and subsequent talk of a Jewish state, not just a homeland.<br /><br />furthermore, being opposed to a jewish state is FAR different from wanting jews to leave. there had been Sephardic Jews in Palestine and North Africa for a long while. being opposed to a Jewish state is FAR different from racism. the imperialist powers had no right to legislate a Jewish state within the territory of the Palestinian people. i see no good reason why any right-thinking Palestinian in 1947 (or 1917 for that matter) would support the actions of the imperialist Western powers. even more so when this action is being forced on a former colony--in those early days of decolonialism and self-determination, no less. if you were a Palestinian in 1947, it would be supporting the colonial occupiers, the Western imperialists, to accept a Jewish state.<br /><br />they carved Palestine into a homeland for the Jews--into a Palestinian state and a Jewish one. why? was this the ONLY solution to a history of Western pogroms against the Jews? and what right-thinking Palestinian would accept this answer? why should Jerusalem need to be a UN occupied city when the tension in Jerusalem really only started after Balfour and talk of a Jewish state?<br /><br />living with the Jews? over the centuries, the Palestinians had gotten along better with the Jewish population than their European neighbors. living with them is one thing. a Jewish state is quite another.<br /><br />there was plenty of anti-Jewish rhetoric before independence. plenty of Zionist rhetoric against the Arabs. attacks, murders, riots--all went both ways. it was not a peaceful time--the end of a colonial regime rarely is. it should be noted that British officers who were anti-Zionists have been condemned by history for being somewhat complicit in Arab riots and violence against Jews. this is deplorable, but i mention it to show the ultimate responsibility is certainly not Arab leaders, but the criminal colonial occupation by (mainly) Britain.<br /><br />i think it is Historical Revisionism to begin blaming Arabs for the situation today because of a resistance to the 2 state solution in the 40s, resistance to a policy forced on them by decades of Western imperialism<br /><br />read about the Balfour Declaration, the history of nonreligious Zionism, the British Mandate, all that shit. i think you will empathize even more with the Palestinians after reading it. </blockquote>zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-16895060159686587482010-12-21T23:52:00.001-08:002012-02-14T10:01:37.489-08:00medium prejudicebooks are taken seriously, films are taken seriously, but the medium which exists exactly between the two, with expressive and narrative possibilities unique to its format -- adding the visual dimension to text, and allowing more imaginative freedom than film -- is still considered by so many to be childish and unworthy of attention.zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-43028117013064140732010-12-12T22:28:00.000-08:002010-12-21T23:56:34.254-08:00commonly accepted bullshit1. "cooked food is easier to digest and generally better for you than raw", this everyone my generation and above knows, and is complete false.<br /><br />2. "third world" people who move to another country are called "immigrants", but "first world" people who do the same are called "expats". so i guess i was a Chinese immigrant, but now i'm an American expat. i'm going to exchange the 2 terms during usage starting now. i wonder if people will actually correct me after i say "Swedish immigrants" or "Nigerian expats". (or as someone cleverly said on Facebook: "Mexican Expats living in America with non-Mexicans") <br /><br />3. coming soonzhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-88498321905263453042010-08-26T07:25:00.000-07:002010-08-26T07:29:59.998-07:001961 CIA murder of Congo leader Patrice Lumumba<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.iisg.nl/images/a59-327.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px;" src="http://www.iisg.nl/images/a59-327.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>New evidence in controversy over CIA responsibility for the 1961 assassination of democratically elected Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. Evidence which more than ever implicates the US and Holland in this murder which had catastrophic consequences for the region which last until today.<br /><br /><br />from "Padraig (u.s.)":<br /><br />"Lumumba's death paved the way for the rise to power of Mobutu Sese Seko, an enormously corrupt dictator who spent most of the next 30-odd years exorbitantly enriching himself & his cronies while the majority of Congole...se languished in poverty. Sese Seko, who came to power in a CIA-backed coup, was supported by the U.S. on "anticommunist" grounds. Lumumba wasn't a communist himself, but he was fiercely nationalist and anti-imperialist, bit of a firebrand, a man before his time (like Nelson Mandela in his younger years, kinda). of course in the Cold War terms to the U.S. that made a communist, despite his explicit avowals that he wasn't & that he disliked communism as much as colonialism. anyway Sese Seko's regime was disastrous for the Congo, as he didn't do anything to administrate the country beyond ensuring that he & his could steal as much as they wanted to, so consequently by the time he was finally overthrown the country was a) a simmering pot of ethnic & tribal hatreds & 2) ripe for plunder, with that amazing bounty of resources (hardwood timber & enormous mineral wealth & so on) an inviting target for neighboring countries (Rwanda, Angola, Uganda, a bunch of others) who would back various factions in the endless, multifacteted series of civil wars that continue more or less unabated to present day, as well as foreign multinationals. so in a not too-indirect way you could say that Lumumba's death, and the kinds of policies it was a part of, is largely responsible for the absolute effing mess the Congo is in/has been in for the last twenty years or so. granted there's no way of knowing what Lumumba would've done had he not been assassinated, but one imagines that at the very least it would've been something different. after his murder Sese Seko not only declared Lumumba a national hero but also, in an act of staggeringly shameless irony, attempted to portray himself as Lumumba's successor; Sese Seko was always kinda a master of pretending to be anti-colonial while in reality wedging himself as far up the West's collective ass as he could possibly get. Lumumba's death was also related to the secession of the mineral-rich province of Katanga under another anticommunist strong man, Moise Tshombe, supported by the Belgians (Lumumba was actually murdered in Katanga, almost certainly by Belgian security forces, possibly w/American collusion)."<br /><br /><br /><br />Stephen R. Weissman<br /><br />...Intelligence and National Security<br />Vol. 25, No. 2, 198-222, April 2010<br /><br />Abstract<br /><br />Controversy over alleged CIA responsibility for the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba continues to swirl despite a negative finding by the US Senate Church Committee in 1975. A new analysis of declassified and other Church Committee, CIA and State Department documents, memoirs of US and Belgian covert operators, and author interviews with former executive branch and Church Committee officials shows that the CIA Congo Station Chief was an influential participant in the Congo Government's decision to "render" Lumumba to his bitter enemies. Moreover evidence strongly suggests the Station Chief withheld his advance knowledge of Lumumba's fatal transfer from Washington policymakers, who might have blocked it. Flaws in the Church Committee's verdict are traced to CIA delays in providing key cables, staff overreliance on lawyers' methodology, and political pressure to water down original draft conclusions. What happened in Lumumba's case provides insight into the contemporary problem of establishing accountability in US anti-terrorist programs. Current rendition policies are also characterized by ambiguous performance standards for covert operators on the ground and difficulty in pinpointing US responsibility within the intimate relationship between the CIA and foreign government clients. The Church Committee's experience clarifies the conditions for meaningful outside regulation of anti-terrorism operations today.<br /><br />[in film footage taken after Lumumba's capture, available on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGnGFaJqmzU] "a tall dark man in his 30s with a small beard and mustache and open collared white shirt sits in the back of an army truck, his... hands bound behind him. One of the numerous non-American soldiers around him brutally pulls his hair to raise his face to the cameras; another gratuitously tightens his bonds, causing him to grimace in pain. ... The young Commander watches his men abusing the prisoner, smiling occasionally. The CIA - a strong backer of the Commander - had been trying to kill or capture the 'target' for months. Recently, the CIA Station Chief had met with security officials to make sure the right roads were blocked and troops alerted. According to the CIA Director, the prisoner's background was 'harrowing' and 'his actions indicate that he is insane'. Within weeks of this incident, the authorities decided to transfer the prisoner to another government - one that had threatened to kill him. They immediately informed the local CIA Station Chief of their plan. Three days later, the prisoner and two colleagues were hustled onto a plane bound for enemy territory. Savagely beaten throughout the flight, the prisoners were taken away after landing and never seen again."<br /><br />thanks to Sufi and Padraig (u.s.)zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-7821991443610413682010-08-26T07:20:00.000-07:002010-08-26T07:25:39.296-07:00Russia in color, 100 years ago<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/prokudin_08_20/p01_00021620.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 650px;" src="http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/prokudin_08_20/p01_00021620.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/08/russia_in_color_a_century_ago.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed1_HP#photo21">more here</a>zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-67822758405419237222010-07-07T10:43:00.000-07:002010-07-18T07:36:35.346-07:00Zhaoist Manifesto<span style="font-weight:bold;">1. FUSION</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"The boundaries of objects are vague - and that goes for us too... Describing the world in terms of discrete objects is a useful fiction."</span> - Kees van Deemter<br /><br />Well worn cliche or not, everything is connected. Borders and separation, in the spheres of physics, of politics, of "race", as it is of culture, are illusions fostered by narrow and fearful minds, often purposefully fabricated by those who seek control and to benefit from alienation, antagonism, and the suffering of millions. <br /><br />Today our conceptions of the cultures of the world, of their history and relationships to each other, is sadly still under heavy influence of 18th and 19th century revisionist versions of history. During those colonialist times in the United States, education reform initiated by the wealthy elite of powerful industrialists applied sweeping changes across university campuses, teaching a fundamental and intrinsic divide between "East" and "West", painting the former as largely superstitious, backwards, repressive, and the later progressive, modern, liberal. While in Europe racist German and English scholars began erasing the African and Asian foundational influence of classical Greece out of history, replaced by an absurd Euro-centric story of the "Cradle of Western Civilization" developing more or less autonomously, with the only outside influence from "Northern Tribes", separate from much older and more advanced civilizations in close physical proximity. The dissemination of this fictional dichotomy between the "occident" and "orient" has always been politically motivated: it furthers the aims of the ruling class, provides a necessary ideological backdrop for colonial and neo-colonial agendas, and is still instrumental in world affairs today (the structural basis for "the war on terror" as related to the demonization of Islam).<br /><br />But there is no essential divide between "East" and "West", their relationship being more like parent and child. And when it comes to music, the inter-relatedness of all cultures and the character of their specific relationships can be perhaps even more easily understood. For instance if one looks at the history of the guitar, one finds that it was descendent of the Oud, the first record of which appears in ancient Mesopotamia during the Acadian period (2359-2159 BC). The Romans around 40 AD made a version of it called the Cithara, which spread to the Vikings in Europe; and later Gypsies living in Islamic Spain created the modern guitar based on that. And if one traces the history of 20th Century North American pop and dance music, a crude and very abbreviated but basically sound genealogy describes a line going back to Disco, to Soul, to Funk, to Motown, to Gospel, to Blues, to Jazz, to work songs of the slaves, and indeed, to Africa. <br /><br />Continuities are everywhere one chooses to look: the Balkans are connected to Israel to Iraq to Spain to Egypt to Morrocco to Mali to the Congo to Haiti to Cuba to Colombia to NYC. Yet there is still this prevalent vantage point that "World Music" is indeed somehow fundamentally different from "Western Music", and it is still shocking to some that non-Western sounds are making such a ripple in 2010 (the success of artists such as Omar Suleyman, and a new wave of indie musicians citing non-western influence). As if Rock and Roll itself wasn't African American, and less directly, African in origin. As if Led Zeppelin wasn't heavily influenced by Turkish music, or the Rolling Stones by Morroccan traditions, the Beatles by Indian Classical, Can and (early) Kraftwerk by East Asian sensibilities and African percussion, Debussey and John Cage by Indonesian Gamelan, Steve Reich and Georgy Ligetti by African polyrhythms, etc, etc, etc. Forward thinking and ground breaking modern music in the "west" has always taken cues from much older non-western sources (similar to the way modern visual art owes much to pre-modern, so called "primitive" forms).<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">2. RE-ENTRY</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">“Those piles of ruins which you see in that narrow valley watered by the Nile, are the remains of opulent cities, the pride of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia. There a people, now forgotten, discovered while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences.”</span> - Count Volney<br /><br />Humans have surely forgotten much more than we know today, with the ravage of time, after countless wars, destructions of entire cultures, libraries burnt down. By the same token, ancient musical traditions contain forms which are more advanced, more inventive, more structurally challenging, more revolutionary in every sense of the word, than any "futuristic" electronic dance music today. And in terms of the expansion of minds or shaking of booties, the bits and pieces passed down to us, remnants of sound traditions reaching back to ancient times, often embody methods far superior to what you might find in today's dance clubs. One man sitting on the island of Madagascar, singing over an insistent rhythmic melody plucked out of a one string instrument contains more ingenuity, more innovation, more raw power, more soul, more fire, than anything produced in the last 30 years.<br /><br />All rhythm certainly comes from Africa, as the drum itself was invented somewhere around Kenya tens of thousands of years ago. But African music is much more than drumming, for example the various Kora traditions weaving complex melodic structures that would make Bach dizzy. To be more precise, in much of African music one finds an un-differentiated oneness of rhythm and melody, never divorced from each other by over analytical minds. Examples of this can be found in Soukous guitar playing, the various Mbira (thumb piano) musics scattered through out the continent, and the "Shangaan Electro" phenomena which is all the hype right now, itself only the latest expression of age old tradition.<br /><br />What we have seen in the last few centuries is a return to rhythm, after being largely divided from it for many centuries under the European Classical establishment, which reduced its importance and saw it as "primitive" and "plebean", emblematic of music of savages and the underclass. But in the melting pot of the Americas, a traumatic confrontation between European and African traditions became probably the most important source of innovation in the past mellenium, forming the seeds of the myriad kinds of musical styles we know today.<br /><br />The only way to move things forward is to look back upon the treasures of our collective past. It is indeed this re-entry of indigenous musical heritage, fused with urban bass culture, this combination of ancestral musical ideas and modern sound, which is now giving rise to irresistible next level dance music on every continent. Crucial new scenes thrive and vital new styles are born in almost every corner of the world, challenging and displacing the centralized hegemonic culture manufacturing machine which attempts to fill the world with its vacuous regurgitation. But despite the spread of information technologies, there is a pointed lack of communication between musical communities of the world today, and many scenes remain relatively isolated and insular, inaccessible to their potential global audience who hunger after new sounds. For instance Kwaito, the South African House/Hiphop hybrid style based on traditional Zulu music, flourished for 2 decades within the townships while being virtually unknown outside, and only recently began to make waves in the world at large. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">3. the Responsibility of DJs</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"who cares? it's just music!"</span> - anonymous<br /><br />Economic, political, and other arbitrary factors entirely other than artistic merit often determine which music rises to global prominence, and which is relegated to obscurity and silence outside of it's region. As Alan Lomax put it half a century ago (i paraphrase): "mass media broadcasts the voice of the privileged, while often times more deserving, more beautiful voices in poverty stricken places remain unheard." Thus djs in these neo-colonialst times, as cultural workers whose particular role affords them direct access to audiences, must be aware of the many levels of inequity in the world, and do his/her job with this awareness in mind.<br /><br />Of course, above all other concerns, djs must rock the party. We must create unforgettable experiences on the dance floor, and fascilitate that <span style="font-style:italic;">most important</span> (no, it is not frivolous at all!) of social functions: the celebration of life despite its hardships. But there is more than 1 way to mash up the dance, and djs do not have to pander to the charts or appeal to lowest common denominators to please a crowd. <br /><br />Djs can both entertain and educate the audience. They can transcend the here and now, go beyond or destroy the status quo, if they choose to. Music is never "just music", but always an expression of social reality. I would love to see the world around us and the situation we are in to inform more dj sets, which make site specific references and conceptual links, infusing the musical experience with many levels of meaning. A good Dj should do in depth research into her/his chosen styles, its history and lineage as related to other styles, find and make unexpected connections.<br /><br />In this day and age, many members of society and especially other artists still view the DJ as a clown-ish, superficial, unsophisticated and unimportant character, who exists solely to entertain drunk idiots. If all other reasons fail, this might be motivation enough to start taking ourselves and what we do more seriously.zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-31898077430041395002010-06-04T23:09:00.000-07:002010-06-04T23:12:23.030-07:00MoralityA man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in<br />spite of obstacles and dangers, and pressures — and that is the basis<br />of all human morality. - John F. Kennedy <br /><br />and another, congruent definition, is the giving of one's life to a higher cause. <br /><br />and we should note here that perhaps more clearly, perfectly, and undoubtedly than any other, the Suicide Bomber exemplifies both.zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-91001556387179645112010-05-08T15:56:00.000-07:002010-05-09T02:24:47.806-07:00Art is...Art is what people make for non-utilitarian purposes, which become more than the sum of its parts, and possessive of multiple layers of meaning, to which the viewer may return a thousand times, each walking away with a new experience.<br /><br />- Zhao<br /><br />Art is artificial and absurd. From a religion attendent it has become a religion surogate, and unlike religion it is a psychologocial side effect within a sense and meaning seeking creature in a sense lacking world. So it just creates its artificial universes of meaning. Thats it and it is phantastic and fascinating. <br /><br />- Carsten Heisterkamp<br /><br /><br />ok your turn :)zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-18994349302403695632010-05-07T05:53:00.000-07:002010-05-07T05:58:17.101-07:00<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pR98TQVnCQc&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pR98TQVnCQc&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400"></embed></object>zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28176889.post-57139163413314154462010-03-11T01:04:00.000-08:002010-03-11T01:08:36.710-08:00War and the Noble Savage<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://dreamflesh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/war-noble-savage-cover.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://dreamflesh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/war-noble-savage-cover.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>i would start with the slide cast linked to below, as it is a good overview of the book and its key points -- a look at both the history of the notion of the "noble savage" as well as analysis of recent theories concerning them and pre-civilization.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"> <a href="http://dreamflesh.com/projects/war-noble-savage/#slidecast">War & the Noble Savage</a></span><br />A Critical Inquiry into Recent Accounts of Violence amongst Uncivilized Peoples<br /><br />people who have taken an interest in the recent "declining levels of violence through history charts" may find this especially interesting.zhaohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14353325572641788305noreply@blogger.com0